It’s All About the RIGHT FIT

by Christy Heitger-Ewing

Whenever a potential client reaches out to Jeff Yancey or his building consultant, Natalie Zaun, to inquire about building a custom home with Yancey Homes, they encourage a meeting, even if the client has not yet selected design plans or a lot. It’s the start of what Yancey refers to as “the dating phase.”

“Spending that time together gives us the opportunity to ‘date’ our clients and for our clients to ‘date’ us,” says Yancey. “Unlike buying a refrigerator, this is a longer process where we’ll be married to them as they will be to us for a stretch of time during construction. It is about the right fit that allows everything to fall into place.”

Last summer Yancey and Zaun met with potential clients to discuss a project from the ground up.

“We worked alongside them during the design process, gave them pricing guidelines, as well as the opportunity to reach out to past clients to see some of our work,” Yancey says. “We are now contracted with them and will start building this month.”

A seasoned builder for more than 20 years, J.A. Yancey & Associates Inc. has built five to six custom homes per year primarily on the north side of Indianapolis. Since 2001, he has developed a number of long-standing relationships with suppliers and vendors, including a vendor that’s also a right fit. Yancey uses most of McComb Pella’s wide range of products because in the custom world, the sky’s the limit.

“A customer may want an arch above a window. That instantly takes you from one classification to another,” he says. “There are just so many things that they can do custom-wise that really determines which package to use. For instance, if a customer wants blinds between the glass, that will put them in a certain category immediately. If a customer has no special needs for a window, however, then there is no need to put them in a more expensive class when the other class would meet their criteria and save them money.”

From the get-go, one of their clients who lives on a property that overlooks a ravine made it clear that their top priority was building a light, bright home with lots of big windows to let in ample natural light. Their vision was to make it feel like a wall of windows in the back of the home. So, Yancey set up a meeting with a representative from McComb Pella to look at plans, designs, and windows. Ultimately, it’s the windows that make this transitional, modern style ranch in the woods so appealing and unique.

The great room is not the only room of the house that has windows that wow. The sprawling transitional ranch also includes a giant 8 ft. x 6 ft. window above the kitchen sink as well as uniquely placed black-rimmed windows in the master bath. Plus, they installed a huge 10 ft. tall by 16 ft. wide door in the back of the house.

“What’s great about Jeff is that clients will ask him for his opinion and while he’ll guide them from an engineering/quality/ cost/efficiency perspective, he’s mindful not to overstep with regard to offering opinions on design and decorating because everyone has a different perspective on what they want,” says Zaun. “We always remind our clients that this is their home to design how they like.”

These days, when it comes to custom built homes, it really is all about the windows letting the natural light shine in. Connect with McComb Window & Door or J.A. Yancey to start the process on a custom home that brings the beauty of nature indoors.